“Mister B. Gone” by Clive Barker

I’ll open this review with a confession. I am a Clive Barker fanatic. I’ve at this point read nearly all his published works and by and large have loved them all. Even his movies, often adaptations of his written work, are favorites of mine. I’ve seen “Candyman” and read “Imajica” so many times over I feel confident that I could, if compelled for some reason to do so, act out scenes from either word for word. His stories aren’t for me mere sources of entertainment they are a treasured part of my life.

And then there is “Mister B. Gone”.

I can sum up my feelings about this book, which was hailed by some as Barker’s return to his horror roots, with one word; disappointment. This book has no depth or spirit, which is quite the shortcoming in a book that is suppose to be demon possessed.

This storyline, if you want to call it that, follows the Earthly life of a demon named Jakabok Botch but who prefers to be called Mr. B.. Jakabok is both the narrator and prisoner of the book and fancies himself quite the writer. He couldn’t be further off base. Written with out chapters the book reads like the journal of an individual only casually interested in documenting their life and with only a vague memory of important events.

Nearly every other page or “entry” ends with Jakabok speaking directly to the reader, pleading with them to burn the book and end his imprisonment and presumably his life. This was kooky and fun at first, but quickly became annoying, repetitive, and in this reader’s opinion a very cheap way to fill up pages and stretch out the book’s length. By the time the pleas became threats and was clearly meant to carry a creep out factor the whole affair was just boring. The only readers I could see this tactic even remotely working on are the highly religious and/or superstitious, because simply no one else is going to be frightened by a paper demon saying he’s standing behind them with a knife posed to torture and kill them.

There are a handful of scenes throughout the book that are gruesome and violent enough to remind the reader they are reading a Clive Barker story. I also appreciate the fact that Mr. Barker saw fit to address the popular misconception that the Bible was the first book to be published via the printing press, it was in fact a grammar text book that was first reproduced in this manner, but these scenes far from redeem this particular book and as much as it pains me to say it the only thing in my opinion that would redeem it would be to follow the wishes of its main character and burn it.

"...so the actual book was as bad as this review was good...", remarked the goblin, who always preferred someones live writing on the Internet it seemed, adding "...bravo HYdraMStar, I will read anything you write now...", which was true he knew

Thank you.